Islanders website: Has a few kind words about some blog called NYI Fan Central in their update today.

NYI Fan Central Comments:First off my thanks to the Islanders for carrying my blog on their site and for all the kind words both public and private about my blog all season. I see how hard the folks work at the website and all the new updates they incorporate like the stat packs or the Orange and Blue Review and of course Islanders/Sound Tigers TV among several things. Even though I have been doing updates like this for years to see how hard these folks worked for us on the road trip was something that made me stop and appreciate how hard they work for us as I did a lot of extra updates with the team in a hockey hotbed like Western Canada which does not even include all the coverage of Kyle Okposo back in Ct.

Kind of inspired me to do a little more, especially with so much hockey media in Canada seeing the Islanders for the first time in years and telling the players stories.

Whether my blog was in the blog box or not I would be doing the same thing as a lot of Islander fans with sites do. There are a lot of folks out there with radio shows on the club who do an outstanding job.

As for NYI Fan Central I hope the quality lives up to the name I selected for my blog and it helps the Islanders in some way.

Al Arbour used to say hockey is fun, for me doing a blog like this is fun.

NYI Fan Central is about trying to do something to try and help because I see how hard these folks work for us and how little media attention the club receives. I hope I'm fair with the comments and coverage but of course no one agrees on everything and if you put ten Islander fans in a room all ten would likely see something different which only helps.

I come from an era in New York Hockey where the Islanders could play a weeknight regular season home game against a Western Conference team and the Post, News and Newsday would have the game on it's back page the next day. I do want to put the lack of coverage of our club under the spotlight and the opinion of the folks doing the coverage because their perception of our team is what fans, other media and players on other teams tend to believe. I think it's fair to write the lack of coverage is why so many players who do an excellent job here are considered under-rated in NHL media circles.

I also like to ask the question why and see if I can find answers for myself and hope a few folks want to do the same thing.

In terms of what I do here with the updates I basically have been doing the same thing on Islanders-Sound Tigers or HF and just continued the process here. I'm not even sure where the original idea came from but I do recall Lyle Richardson/Spector at Fox Sports every day does trade rumors and links up to the publications or websites for reference all over the NHL as do other independent team sites like Kuklas Korner which is featured here. I just decided to make it Islander-centric to expand the information about our club and of course Michael Fornabaio's outstanding Ct Post coverage in Bridgeport since the day the Sound Tigers came into the AHL.

Having written that my thanks again to Mr Prospects for going onto the message board and doing the prospect updates by game for this blog. I hope I have thanked him enough for his efforts because that's something I could simply not do daily or half as well as he does it.

I also have to give my share of credit here to Mr Wang and the Islanders staff here for a lot of great innovative ideas.

Last year the organization had player blogs with updates from Mike Bossy which let us get to know our players and was ground breaking. This year the club decided to reach out to it's fans for blogs which again was a great idea.

When I submitted my blog I wrote to Mr Botta/Mr Witt and told them I wanted the younger folks who have an interest in journalism to occupy the blog box seats because I felt this was an opportunity for someone to become a hockey writer who's an Islander fan who wants a career in journalism in a print media with virtually no Islander fans.

Player interviews is not an interest of mine and still they were kind enough to add this blog to their group of excellent bloggers already selected. In the end this is not about me, if your looking to learn about me you came to the wrong place, it's time the New York Islanders became the story again.

That's why I'm here doing this blog.

My thanks again to the New York Islanders organization and the folks visiting this blog for their kind words and support.

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